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Topic: 'But I had toooooo' (Read 20488 times)

I am writing this to ask for the wise readers perspective on an issue...

background - My mother has a history of being self centred and needing to make things about her

backgorund 2 - I am currently 8 and half weeks pregnant (YAY!). My husband and I have told only immediate family, parents and siblings, and want to wait till I am out of the first trimester till we tell everyone else. We know the first trimester can be dangerous and are enjoying spending time getting to use to the idea ourselves before we tell the world.

The story -I had this conversation with my mother about 2 weeks agomum: I am going to tell the people at work me: We are not telling yet, and you work at the high school I went and we are waiting to tell people we know mum: Well I have toome: no, don'tmum: well I am going to anyway

my husband put it down to her wording it badly and just being excited about our news

fast forward to yesterday and my mum and I are driving to an extending family gathering (grandparents, uncle, aunties ect). Mum ask if she can tell people. I said I haven't even had my first anti-natal appointment yet and we want to wait. My again said she 'had too', I said 'no'

We get to the gathering and when no one is around in a quiet voice mum reminds not to eat the smoked salmon (no recommended during pregnancy), I thank her. Everyone then sits down to eat and mum turns to me and loudly states 'you shouldn't eat soft cheese now'. The rest of table stops and stares and aunty points out the hard cheeses. Later as everyone is leaving, my mum and aunty are standing at one end of the dinning room and me at the other (with a 8 seater table and the rest of the family between us) and i hear mum say in a fake whisper 'its going to be the 24th February (my due date), so when we get together in february..., she then uses her hands to mimic a pregnant belly. We then left and this was the conversation we had in the car

me: you told them mum: I had too me: but i asked you not toomum: i just told your aunty, how did you know?me: you weren't subtle, i think the rest of the room figured it out toomum: but I had too!

My husband and I really annoyed because she knew we didn't want anyone to know, she even asked me if she could tell and I said no. She didn't listen to anything we wanted. She has also robbed us of the opportunity to tell our family of our first child, i chance we will never get back

Ehell, Am i over reacting (which due to hormones i have been doing a lot lately) or is there a clear violation here

I don't think you are overreacting, your mom blatantly went against your very explicit wishes. There's not much you can do about that now, but in the future, I would not include your mom in any kind of "inner circle" information. If she can't keep it to herself, she can find out when the rest of the world does.

Let's say you and your DH pick a name. Don't tell you mom until after it's on the birth certificate. She seems to be the kind of person for whom information is power, meaning, the power to be interesting and have something to tell. So she loses that privilege from you.

When I was pregnant with my second child, we had very good reasons for not telling a lot of people at first. I did tell my brother, and gave him permission to tell his fiancee (to explain why I would not be able to fit into a certain dress to be in their wedding!), but cautioned "But don't tell anyone else, because we aren't telling people yet. And I haven't told Mom." A week or two later, his fiancee's mother congratulates me. In front of my mother. Who was very upset at not knowing, and feeling like she was the only one who didn't know. And of course, my soon to be SIL's mother felt awful, because it had not occurred to her that I wouldn't have told my mother. My brother's excuse for telling his fiancee's mother? "I had to, she was in the room."

There's not much you can do about it now, since she's already told people, but I think your mother has shown that she can't be trusted to keep things to herself and it would be best not to tell her anything that shouldn't be shared. If there are people she hasn't told yet, and she insists on doing so, you could tell her that in the future you won't tell her things until you're ready for everyone to know.

Nope, you are not overreacting. It is YOUR news to share, not hers. (And congrats!!)

I'd tell her "You know Mom, now that DH and I have realized you can't keep a secret, you'll be the last one to know what name we decide on, when we're ready for visitors after the birth, etc." Let her think on that for a bit.

You now know you can't trust your mom to keep a secret. So I wouldn't tell her anything that you aren't prepared to have her share with everyone she knows.

So if you have another child and she gets upset because she didn't find out until the first trimester is over, you can (politely) point out that it's her own fault. If she "has to" share your news, she simply won't find out about until you are ready to share that news with the world.

It is so incredibly sad when this lack of respect and this selfishness creates a wall between a parent and a grown child!

Now you would be completely justified in not telling her anything. In fact, if you truly don't want anyone else to know, or even if you want to be the first to tell anyone, you will *have* to shut her out. It's not supposed to be like that. What a sadness for you. And for her.

I will say that we too didn't want anyone to know, and so we didn't tell even our parents until 12 weeks. For one thing, they are "someone" and then they would know. For another, the time we wanted to keep it to ourselves meant keeping them out as well. And last, because I did feel it would be sort of less-than-kind to my MIL to ask her to keep it quiet for very long--it would be hard for her, and she would enjoy it so much more if she could immediately trumpet it to everyone. So we built that in (including the idea that she could tell anyone she wanted to).

But I don't think it was unfair of you to ask of your mom (and wouldn't have been wrong to ask it of my MIL either).

It wouldn't be wrong for you to say, "Mom, since you couldn't follow our request to keep the news quiet from *everyone*, we are now going to have to keep information from you. And we'll have to watch very carefully to see if you are going to follow our instructions about baby care as well--you'll need to show us that you will actually listen to what we want. I'm sad--I had hoped to be able to be unguarded with you, but it's clear we will need to be more careful."

You are not out of line with your feelings. She just might be one of those people that you can't tell a secret to until you want everyone to know. If in the future she complains that "I'm your Moooootttthhhhheeeerrrr" you could remind her that she doesn't keep secrets and it's important to you that the people who are close to you can keep a confidence. For those who can't, you just don't tempt.

I would not share any more info with her. Not due date, not gender, nothing. Some people just love being the town crier, and it sounds like she is a boundary trampler. I actually did not tell a soul about my pregnancy until I knew it was going to start becoming obvious..we wanted to revel in it ourselves and have our kids be told first and get used to the idea of it (mixed family..and they were overjoyed!).

You did not overreact.You do know how your mother is now. She is not going to change. Tell her whatever you want the rest of the family, and the neighbors, and the clerk at the grocery store, to know. Don't tell her anything you want to keep confidential. So no information about your medical problems, and definitely never share anything about disagreements with your dh ever, she would telleveryone. My mom was like this, I just never told her anything important unless I wanted all my relatives to know. So she got the phone call AFTER the baby was born, I didn't want a huge crowd art the hospital.

Here's the thing. What your mom did was wrong, and rude, and totally inconsiderate. Yes, she violated your privacy and has proven herself to be completely untrustworthy. If you ever tell her a secret again, after this, you have made a conscious decision to broadcast it. Bear that in mind.

But it need not rob one ounce of joy out of your life or your child's unless you let it. If breaking the news of your pregnancy is such a big deal to you that having the news leak out makes you feel "robbed" and worry about a "chance you will never get back", then maybe your mom's drama-seeking has influenced you, and it's a good opportunity to look at how it makes her act and reject it.

Parenting (and life) is not about moments or "reveals." It is about how you reveal your character every day walking through your life. Hold onto that, because it will carry you through the storms of hormones and emotion, and selfish relatives, and the ten thousand rudenesses that happen to all of us when we are pregnant and parenting, and allow you to be a far more mature and grounded person than it sounds like your mom will ever be.

Hugs, congratulations on your good news, and best wishes for you & the baby.

It wouldn't be wrong for you to say, "Mom, since you couldn't follow our request to keep the news quiet from *everyone*, we are now going to have to keep information from you. And we'll have to watch very carefully to see if you are going to follow our instructions about baby care as well--you'll need to show us that you will actually listen to what we want. I'm sad--I had hoped to be able to be unguarded with you, but it's clear we will need to be more careful."